Rosa Parks became the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, sharing the tribute bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and other national leaders. Her funeral lasted seven hours!

Jesse Jackson  of all people  delivered the eulogy, and called for a life-size statue of Rosa Parks to be erected in the halls of Congress.

I have no issue with Rosa Parks. But I do have an issue with liberals trying to canonize her in order to glorify themselves, and legitimize their route to "progress" through political and racial agitation instead of hard work and character.

Current liberal black leaders have accomplished nothing of value. They are like parasites, living off the legacy of Dr. King. In contrast, the black and white freedom fighters of the civil-rights era were men and women of character.

Jesse Jackson and other liberal black leaders never encourage black Americans to do better. They're motivated by greed for power and money, which can only be fed if blacks stay dependent  i.e., stay Democrats. Why else turn Rosa Parks' funeral into a political opportunity instead of a celebration of courage?

The corrupt leadership didn't respect Rosa when she was alive either. In 2002, Parks' landlord threatened to evict her from her high-rise apartment after her caregivers missed rental payments. Where was the NAACP? Where was Jackson in 1994, after a drug addict kicked in her door, then beat and robbed her?

The modern civil-rights leaders are, one might say, the illegitimate children of W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois was a founding member of the NAACP, and notorious for his publicized attempts to discredit the late great Booker T. Washington.

Washington called on blacks to focus on hard work, character and increasing economic power, knowing that political power and civil rights would naturally follow.

DuBois believed in the higher education of a "Talented Tenth" of black Americans  a group of elites to guide black America into "higher" civilization. DuBois himself was an elite socialist who believed in racial and political agitation to achieve his ends.

DuBois outlived Washington, and, as we can see from the state of black Americans today, his warped ideas won out  blacks today are led about by leaders whose main purpose is fomenting political and racial agitation.

Interestingly enough, the NAACP and Rosa Parks were not the catalyst for the civil-rights movement. Months before Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat, four black women  Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith  served as plaintiffs in the legal action challenging Montgomery's segregated public transportation system. It was their case  Browder vs. Gayle  not Rosa Parks'  that a district court and, eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court used to strike down segregation on buses.

The most well known of the four plaintiffs was Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old high-school student who refused to give up her seat to a white man. She was then handcuffed, arrested and forcibly removed from the bus.

The NAACP, while initially excited about pursuing a boycott and civil action around Colvin's case, pulled back their support after it was revealed that the Colvin was pregnant out of wedlock.

The community leaders decided to later use Rosa Parks, who was a "pillar" in the community, to challenge Montgomery's segregated bus system by re-enacting what Colvin had done months prior.

The NAACP has received a public relations boon from member Rosa's story, yet ironically had Booker T. Washington's vision of character and racial healing not been successfully attacked by DuBois, by Rosa's time there would have been likely no Jim Crow laws left to fight.

Of course, without political and racial chaos, there would also be no need for partisan, racist organizations like the NAACP. And that is why black conservatives are attacked to this day, while hateful, racial agitators are glorified.

The legacy and name of Rosa Parks will continue to be used to advance the aims of the corrupt liberal elite, specifically in the lead-up to the 2006 elections. Shame on them and their pretense of love for Rosa and for America.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America." To order go to www.bondinfo.org

If you'd rather order by phone, call WND's toll-free customer service line at 1-800-4WND-COM (1-800-496-3266).

During the years 1890 to 1920 black communities and business districts were burned down by white mobs from Tulsa to Rosewood. All the hard work in the world is meaningless (as the Jew of Andalusia and Central Europe learned) if you do not have the most basic right of citizenship. The right to the physical protection of the law.

Although I applaud your zeal, your response is a non-sequiter. Rev. Peterson posits a scenario where blacks build their community up instead of tearing themselves down, and the result would have been a proud and equal black community instead of the race-baiting self-identified "victims."

Racial healing was and is possible. But not if it comes from a position of guilt-mongering.

29
posted on 11/16/2005 9:19:52 PM PST
by freedumb2003
(Let's tear down the observatory so we never get hit by a meteor again!)

Peterson argues that if blacks were perfect enough Jim Crow would have just evaporated. That is nonsensical.

Black conservatives come in two flavors. Those who seek to build a base of support within the black community and those who simply flatter white people. The flattering white people approach will get access to white checkbooks but it will end up in a Alan Keyes, Roy Innis, Joe Clark dead end when whites figure out that they are wasting their money on a loser.

The "blacks brought Jim Crow on themselves because they aren't perfect and if they had been perfect white people would have had to love them" argument is fawning flattery.

32
posted on 11/17/2005 5:29:48 PM PST
by Sam the Sham
(A conservative party tough on illegal immigration could carry California in 2008)

Sam, you're ignorant of history and common sense. Booker T. Washington believed, rightly so, that if black Americans made themselves indispensable in their communities, assimilation and eventual parity would come to pass. Whereas WEB Dubois advocated essentially a dictatorship of the intellectual elites, and agitation for "progress". The agitation did just that--agitated at the expense of better race relations. And many blacks who took the Dubois path ended up, as Washington pointed out, in the absurb position of knowing how to speak foreign languages while being skilless and broke. So much for "progress".

Violent racism was the foundation of the traditional way of life of an entire culture. As we saw with the Indians of East Africa, the Jews of Central Europe and Andalusia, and what will happen to the Chinese of South East Asia if the Indonesian junta falls, thinking that you can be so perfect and indispensible that violent racism (and socioeconomic envy) can be charmed away is moronic. Life is not some 60's Sidney Poitier movie. It doesn't work and it has never worked and your flattering white people approach will consign Jesse Patterson to the garbage heap alongside Alan Keyes, Roy Innis, Joe Clark, etc.

The Washington approach was doomed because it is not possible to amass wealth without the protection of the law. His approach was not a sign of hope. The Atlanta Speech was a "If we blacks give up completely on civil rights will you promise to stop killing us and just let us live in peace ?" The Irish made progress because they were able to seize the levers of political power and protect themselves. They developed power bases in the major city machines in the face of profound prejudice against "romanism". There is no substitute for the ability to use force.

The idiocy of the Jesse Patterson approach is best shown by his "Blacklist" where he tries to urge whites to boycott black celebrities who are leftist. The black community is intensely protective of its celebrities and public figures, as we saw in the OJ case. Black women defended a black man whose personal life was one blonde after the next. Do you think any measureable number of blacks will think less of a black celebrity who is not a conservative Republican or will have the barest shred of respect for yet the latest white checkbook based black "conservative leader" who spends most of his energy attacking other blacks ?

On both right and left in black politics there are hustlers and opportunists.

36
posted on 11/19/2005 6:19:11 AM PST
by Sam the Sham
(A conservative party tough on illegal immigration could carry California in 2008)

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